Helmingham Hall Car Show 2025 (part 3)

This is the final instalment (part 3) of the Helmingham Hall car show for this year. I have covered some of the T110 area, the privateer cars and a relaxing (very British) tea and cake early in the afternoon. The last field to go which is on the right hand side as you walk out the Hall was reserved for the club stands. A little later I will reveal my car of the show and along with some action photos of my car that Craig took.

A lively car show scene at Helmingham Hall, featuring a variety of vintage and modern cars, with attendees socializing on the grass and club stands in the background.

We worked our way towards the far end of the field and would work our way back to the rest of the T110 cars where I had parked.

One of the Best looking Ferrari made, the 308. They look amazing in red, but this example in blue with tan interior totally rocks the combination. Crowd fund me (again) anybody?

The Subaru cars often have the nick-name Scoobies after the Scooby Do cartoon, I think somebody took it to the next level though.

Lotus stand had a nice mixture of cars

The Simply Mustang stand had the usual later models of cars with not a classic to be seen which was a shame. I mentioned about the Bullitt anniversary limited edition cars, on this stand there was another couple parked in a line, so that’s a total of three in one show.

Directly behind the the Mustangs was the Corvette club stand.

Taking up a large chunk of the field was the larger stands for Jaguar, BMW both of which looked very samey with mostly more modern cars that could be found in any carpark, so I didn’t take too many pictures of these stands.

The Jenson and Aston Martin stands were a different story though.

Honda NSX in yellow, works for me.

We were now back to the top of the field just in time to get to the main driveway where cars are driven up and down to show the crowds after being interviewed by the compare for the day about their cars.

We made our way back to the T110 area and look at the rest of the cars parked on the other side of the drive to me. Then it happened; it started to rain, it was a very light sprinkling not a proper down poor. The owners of the open top cars were diving around trying to make their cars waterproof and sitting in their cars. It was something like an old school Le Mans racing start people running to their cars.

It would be nice to see a Delorean car without the ‘Back to the Future’ movie car props bolted into it.

Back at the car we got our chairs out ready for a a couple of hours people watching before we were allowed to leave the show at four thirty. We sat in the very fine drizzle which cooled the air down and I only had some minor beading on the car which wasn’t enough to run of the car. The fine misty rain lasted for a around twenty minutes after which the sun made more short appearances. The light breeze soon helped to dry the car off, no need to book a therapy session because my car got wet.

Mart’s Car of the Show.

According to the registration plate this is a Dunsmore MKIII from 1967, with a 3.4ltr engine. This is actually a kit car based on the rather average at the time Hillman Imp donor vehicle of the era below.

A vintage white car parked on a paved surface, surrounded by greenery.

I don’t know why I choose this over the more obvious ‘bought not built’ cars. Perhaps it was the green leather stitched up the back of the car or the (suspected) Jaguar engine under the hood which I sadly didn’t get to see. But, I appreciated the huge amount of work that has gone into this car from what it was, to what it is now. It was just different and caught my eye.

As the time moved slowly towards leaving time the sky was getting darker and more menacing. We decided to leave sooner than later in case the drizzle came to a lot more than that. As we were packing up Craig had an idea; as we were allowed to drive down the full length of the drive he would run ahead get a good position to take a couple of action shots. I wouldn’t be to popular to hold people up so we could get some good photo’s, but so be it. As I was one of the first to leave it wasn’t to busy to be fair. The guy in the Aston Martin behind me realised what was going on, he thoughtfully sat back from me to allow it to happen. Here are those photos which look pretty cool.

A view of Helmingham Hall with classic cars parked outside. A pathway leads to the entrance, framed by trees and banners for 'Bridge Classic Cars'.

A classic blue Ford Mustang driving on a gravel path surrounded by greenery and event fencing.

A classic blue Ford Mustang driving along a tree-lined path at a car show.

A vintage blue Mustang driving down a tree-lined path at a car show.

A blue classic Mustang car driving past trees at the Helmingham Hall car show.

After these action photos I stopped the car and Craig jumped in to start our trek home. As a reward for his picture taking efforts, I found a quiet place to pull over, we swapped seats and Craig drove the last dozen or so miles home. We pulled onto the drive as a few spots of more sinister sized drops of rain intermittently started to land on the car. I ran around the car as quickly as possible to get the road film off knowing what was about to come down. Immediately the cleaning had finished, I jumped straight into the car as the rain started to literally fall out the sky as I moved the car forward, within seconds there were pools of water in the road and on the drive, everything was soaked, it was if somebody had turned a shower on. I got the car in the garage with only a few spots of rain on the top of the car. The drying towels came out to wipe the car over yet again, before covering the car over.

Close-up view of a blue car roof with water droplets, showing a garage interior in the background.

A delay by another minute or so and the car would have been drenched and the therapy session would have to have been booked! The rain wasn’t letting up, Craig took out his camera’s SD Card as we ran into the house. I downloaded his photo’s onto my PC ready to edit them a bit later for this series of posts. Once the rain eased up an hour or so later Craig left for home with my thanks.

It was a great day at my favourite show of the year, fantastic cars, lots of nice people that I spoke to and mate with me for the day, which was nice change from being on my own. Thanks to Craig for the photos and putting up with me dragging him around the fields, although the tea and cake helped I’m sure.

A blue classic car, likely a Ford Mustang, parked on a green lawn with trees in the background. The view is from the rear of the car, showcasing its round taillights and license plate, which reads '1966 OX' from Michigan. A gravel path is visible, leading to other vehicles and people in the distance.

I have only four more potential shows that I’m booked in for. Hopefully I will find some more where I can just turn up.

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Helmingham Hall Car Show 2025 (part 2)

Continuing on from part one of this car show series at Helmingham Hall, Craig and I still had many lines of cars which now seemed to have no logical alignment due to the number of cars as I mentioned previously. By no means a criticism, I just think they had more than they catered for, which means more lovely machinery for us to look at.

We worked our way up the decade assigned rows in ascending order, towards the two thousand’s line I didn’t take that many photos, as to be honest there wasn’t anything really special, well maybe the the odd one or two which did catch my eye.

The timeless beauty of the Aston Martin Vantage – I may start a go fund me page to buy one of these, anybody want to start me of with a donation?

Maybe a crowd funded Chevy Camaro SS, again beautiful.

Did I mention a crowd fund for a Dodge Charger R/T? Stunning.

I remember these Lotus cars quite clearly as it was all the rage to have the JPS – John Player Special (cigarette manufacturers) livery on the Lotus cars which was made famous by the legend of Ayrton Senna. Today it’s unthinkable to have such livery on a car, shame because it was such an iconic brand.

A classic black Formula 1 car with a distinctive gold 'John Player Special' livery, driven by Ayrton Senna on a racetrack.

We found Craig’s mate’s MX5, so I couldn’t resist a checky business card on his screen.

As I mentioned before this field is for the individual entries of which there was a few Mustangs dotted around. There was an anniversary Bullitt which is supposed to be quite rare, but more on that in part 3 when I get to the Mustang stand.

Back to the other modern cars in the lines.

At the far end of the field was a section dedicated for the army vehicles.

The time was now a quarter to one, so we made our way back to the Hall’s courtyard for the tea and cakes. On the way we passed John Grose of Ipswich who had a stand just to the side of the T110 section. On their stand was a Mustang Dark Horse which turns out a rather nice 500bhp from factory. The 0 to 60mph time is a mare 4.1 seconds! That’s right up there with many super cars and almost hyper car levels of performance.

A modern Ford Mustang parked on green grass at a car show, with people and tents in the background.

On the John Grose stand next to Dark Horse they had a more eco friendly Ford electric model and other makes of cars to fill the spaces.

All of this while being serenaded by the brass band playing Star Wars and other theme tunes.

A brass band performing under a tent in a park, surrounded by an audience. Musicians are playing various instruments, while some audience members watch from a distance.

A couple of minutes later we were at the main entrance, crossed over the little moat bridge into the courtyard. I turned around to look back out to the fields.

The courtyard was eerily quiet, no hustle and bustle of people. We had a choice of cakes which were hand made and rather scrumptious, I could easily have demolished a couple more slices. Craig chose his cup of tea to go with his chocolate cake, I had the raspberry ripple. I don’t drink tea or coffee for no other reason than I don’t like the taste of them, never have. I asked for a cold drink if they had any, my option was a cup of water that they used to boil and make the tea with or nothing. I took the kind offer of the cup of water.

We sat and ate our cakes and just relaxed for half an hour or so. The little tables were spread out around the court yard far enough apart that we didn’t have to listen to anybody else, in fact the silence was quite tranquil.

A quick pic of craig doing his thing before the crowds got going.

A blue 1966 Ford Mustang parked on a grassy area with a historic brick building in the background, where people are admiring vehicles at a car show.

Here is that photo he took above.

A vintage blue Ford Mustang parked on green grass, with a historic building in the background.

In part three we go back out to the other field where the club stands are, more Mustangs, and my car of the show.

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Helmingham Hall Car Show 2025 (part 1)

Early February this year I decided to try something different to attend my favourite car show, Helmingham Hall. Normally the entrance fee is £12 per car (driver and one passenger) for this show. There is an alternative which what they call ‘The Tollemache 110’ option. This is for a limited number of cars. One hundred and ten cars max are allowed to park at the front of the Hall, but it comes at cost, quite a lot of cost actually. The plus side is that that you get a tea or coffee, slice of cake for the driver and one passenger plus a commemorative plaque of the day. To pay three times as much entry fee is a gamble, especially when the weather is unknown. Back then I paid the money and hoped the sunshine on the day. My rule is still based on if it rains or I know that it will rain, the car doesn’t come out the garage. So it’s a lot of money to pay and not turn up.

This a show where my good friend Craig joins me for the day, one it’s nice to have company at a car show, secondly he has a great camera and takes much better photos than me. We were swapping messages all week before the show debating the weather, it was going to rain! I have a total of five weather apps I use just for car shows. Four of the five said that there would be light rain at mid afternoon around three for an hour or so, the other one said all rain all afternoon. I decided on this occasion that as it was only light rain while I was there, and not driving there or home, this would be would be acceptable. Craig Turned up at twenty to eight in the morning on a Sunday which felt like the middle of the night. We had chairs, food, coats and camera equipment all neatly packed into the trunk. Craig filmed the car backing out the garage, which I was quite pleased with.

The sun was out and we had a journey of two halves, first to the petrol station where we met up with Craigs other friend who was also going in in Mazda MX5. He followed us to the event which was only around twenty minutes later. It would have been quicker if it wasn’t for the driver in an Austin Healy in front of us thinking he was driving a Sherman tank down a cycle lane. We dived of to some back roads to avoid him and save my sanity. It was longer by a couple of minutes, but it did mean that we had a clear road driving at our own pace. We pulled into the event where we were directed down the main driveway to park out the front of the Hall. We was directed to a great slot next to the path which leads to the main entrance for the Hall. The only down side was that the ground wasn’t level where I parked as it was on a little slope, a small price to pay for a good location.

A classic blue 1966 Ford Mustang parked on the lush green lawn in front of a historic brick building. People are seen socializing in the background, and another car is partially visible.

Once you have parked up, you can collect your show plaque and place it by your car, just a little A-frame with a A4 printed history of your car. The boards can be seen lined up in the above pic, Craig found our board and placed it at the front of the car. He decided to take some photos before the world and his mate were allowed into the show at ten. Even so, it was still busy.

Due to the sheer number of photos, I took over six hundred pics of the one thousand two hundred cars that turned up. For that reason, I will split this show over three posts. Hopefully it will avoid readers getting cramp in their hands scrolling through the all the pics in one go. Like I said Craig’s pics are so much better than mine so here a few to start with. The rest of his pics will also be spread out over the next couple of posts.

A blue Ford Mustang parked in front of Helmingham Hall, showcasing the historic building's brick architecture and entrance, with several classic cars visible in the background.

Close-up view of a classic blue Ford Mustang's headlight and grille, with a historic building in the background.

In the main archway there there was a table looked after by a woman who took your preferred afternoon spot for tea and cake. We decided at around one in the afternoon would be good. More on this a little later.

We started in the T110 area to the left of the house as you walked out, by now the general public were being let in and it got busy very quickly.

The real thing in White and a replica in red, the ever beautiful Countach.

Then the timeless Ferrari Dino, with a fury passenger.

We the main field was split into years, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 2000s. Due to sheer number of cars the lines did get a little mixed up. But we started just behind the vendor stalls where the oldest cars were and then worked out way to the far side of the field to the more modern stuff. Well that was the theory, but it didn’t work out practically though.